2008 Pontiac G8 GT

Fair Dinkum! A BMW impersonator from down under shakes up the wide-track franchise.

The lights went dim in GM’s rear-wheel-drive department about the time Saddam Hussein took over Iraq. It’s been hell in a hatbox ever since. Power—plowing, tire-torturing, torque-steering, steering-numbing power—has driven the front axles of nearly every GM sedan for the past three decades.

Throughout the great front-drive flood, GM’s Holden division in Australia was the ark for big sedans with prop shafts pointed at six o’clock. Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons are a mainstay in Oz and have received continually updated engineering despite the small market. (A good Aussie sales year—a record 1.05 million new vehicles in 2007—equals a disastrous sales month in the States.)

Robert Lutz became the GM product sheriff in 2001, with a directive to inject car-guy sparkle into the insipid, fluorescent-lit catalog. All car guys know that fun lives largest in rear-drivers. The first rummage in GM’s antipodean attic produced the 2004 Pontiac GTO. It bombed, but Lutz and company remain undaunted in their plan to pull Pontiac’s performance bona fides out of mothballs using the next generation of Australian-engineered-and-built rear-drivers. The agenda includes the G8 sedan and, the industry trades claim, a forthcoming sport wagon and an El Camino reboot.

If—a prodigious “if”—it survives hikes in oil prices and federal fuel standards, the strategy promises Pontiac a full lineup of USDA-cut, Euro-style sports machines. That’s not available elsewhere—at least not since Dodge announced the Magnum's demise after 2008. Will the crowds come, especially when the gas pumps are biting? We’ll know soon, as the G8 is already on sale. Meanwhile, this Pontiac is spacious, fast, and agile. It’s a looker, and it’s surprisingly affordable. It’s the best thing to happen at Pontiac since KITT the gabby Trans Am.

The G8 lives within a narrow price band, and the optional furbelows are few. Just $27,595 puts you into the base G8, with a 256-hp, 3.6-liter four-cam V-6 and the 5L40 five-speed automatic. The GT, with its 361-hp, 6.0-liter V-8 and six-speed 6L80 Hydra-Matic, starts delivering 5.3-second barrels to 60 mph for $29,995. With all options, the GT rises to $32,745. A Hemi-equipped Dodge Charger R/T starts at $31,430 and offers more checkable boxes, including all-wheel drive.

Economic pricing extends to the G8’s options, and our tester had them all: a $1250 Premium package, including black leather or black with red seat inserts; a $900 sunroof; and a $600 Sport package that buys 19-inch wheels and summer Bridgestone tires. Summer rubber is standard on all V-8 GTs, and subbing in all-season 18-inchers runs $150.

Clipped overhangs and sheetmetal that is sucked tight over the wheel arches and cabin give the G8 the crouched stance of a Teutonic high roller. The G8’s skeleton is all-new and 100 percent Australian-developed. At 114.8 inches, the wheelbase is 5.2 inches shorter than a Charger’s and the overall length is four inches less; the width and the height are within a few 10ths of the burly Dodge’s.